The toxic impact of the political gaffe is long gone, now that a certain former president has proven diarrhea of the mouth is no longer a risk factor. But journalist Michael Kinsley’s famous definition of a gaffe — occurring “not when a politician lies, but when he tells the truth” — still stands.
Witness the contrived bluster emanating from New Hampshire over comments by Massachusetts Transportation Secretary Monica Tibbits-Nutt, who apparently felt comfortable enough during a meeting with transportation activists to drop the usual bland bureaucratic jargon.
In the never-ending search for more dough to pay for fixing the state’s decrepit transportation infrastructure, Tibbits-Nutt said everything’s on the table, including tolls on the New Hampshire border. “We’re going after all the people who should be giving us money to make our transportation better and our communities better,” she said.
That’s you, tax-evading New Hampshire residents who love to dump on Massachusetts even as they work and play here.
The comments were catnip to chief Granitehead Chris Sununu, last seen being disemboweled on national TV for his pitiful groveling to Donald Trump. “Looks like Massachusetts has found another way to unnecessarily take your money,” he said in a statement to the Herald.
It’s understandable that Gov. Sununu is unaware of his state’s own traffic-snarling, apparently “unnecessary” Hampton tolls; when his limo rolls through there he’s got his head buried in the funny pages, lips moving silently as he tries to parse the jokes in “Garfield.” Less forgiveable: Sununu’s apparent obliviousness to New Hampshire’s array of extractions from drivers’ wallets, including the gas tax and surcharges for battery-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicle registrations.
But self-satisfied posturing is the New Hampshire way, isn’t it? With all due respect to the entrepreneurs, artists and nature-lovers responsible for most of what’s good about the place, New Hampshire’s overweening smugness is often at odds with reality.
Once again this winter, those allegedly super-informed, independent-minded, tire-kicking New Hampshire primary voters dutifully obeyed their partisan marching orders. And at a moment when most of the modern US is becoming more urbanized and diverse, New Hampshire remains stuck in the ‘50s, overwhelmingly white and rural.
They love to preach to their southern neighbors about our supposedly heathen lifestyles, but look who actually ranks below Sodom-on-the-Charles in a Pew Research study of regularity of worship!
New Hampshire’s top politicians are so dumb, they can’t even coordinate their stupidity. While gubernatorial candidate Kelly Ayotte, who hated Trump before it dawned on her she needed to embrace him to compete, has taken to denouncing the pernicious bleed of Massachusetts values onto New Hampshire’s lily-white garment, Sununu wants more of Satan’s spawn to come north.
“All the more reason for more Massachusetts residents to make the permanent move to New Hampshire,” he says of the toll talk. “The Live Free or Die state continues to be the place to be.”
Actually, it’s time to rewrite that slogan for accuracy. Let’s make it: “Live Free or Whine.”